Thursday, October 15, 2015

Chinese Ambassador to Malayasia Reiterates old Doctrine That China has the Right to Intervene Where Chinese People Live, Even if They are NOT Chinese Citizens

DEBATE still simmers about a remarkable intervention in the domestic politics of Malaysia late last month by China’s ambassador in Kuala Lumpur, Huang Huikang. A few days after the police had resorted to water cannon to disperse ethnic-Malay protesters shouting anti-Chinese slogans in the city’s Chinatown, he visited the area and made a statement calling for racial harmony. China “will not sit by idly”, he said, if its citizens’ rights are violated or Malaysian-Chinese relations damaged. The sentiments seem unexceptionable in themselves, if a bit puzzling, since the Chinese living there are almost all Malaysian citizens. But the public gesture seemed to flout the most hallowed tenet of Chinese foreign policy: not to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs. In fact, that principle has always had limits and, where ethnic Chinese are concerned, sometimes seems not to apply at all.